IPVanish Overview

IPVanish has made it to the top five VPN list due to its existence and extensive experience in the industry. The company was founded in 2012 which makes it more than 5 years old. The VPN Company is a commercial service which is based in the United States. It provides end-to-end encryption, just like all other VPNs, but is guaranteed to be more secure allowing you to appear in more than 60 countries.

The name of the VPN company is suggestive enough – IPVanish. It hides the real IP address of a person when a user is connected to the VPN. It has clients for Mac and Windows along with dedicated apps for platforms such as Android, iOS, and Amazon FireStick. One subscriber can connect up to 10 devices at the same time, which allows the user to not only secure the device he is currently using but also protect 9 other at the same time.

What is IPVanish

Anonymous browsing in this day and age is more of a myth for all those online. This is the case until you use a VPN. ISPs are tracing you and tracking your data at all times. Other than that companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and more of such sort keep the record of your interests and know what you are up to at all times.

If this worries you, then you will understand the function of a VPN quite well. IPVanish will allow you to browse the internet with anonymity by hiding your IP address and replacing it with a temporary one. This way all third parties and snoopers can try all they want but they cannot invade your privacy or acquire personal information from your device or your online activity.

Another great use of IPVanish is that it makes the web more easily accessible, irrespective of where you are residing. If you are located somewhere where particular websites and content is blocked, then you can gain access to such content with ease via the IPVanish connection. Change your IP to that of which is required by the website you are trying to access and would otherwise be blocked from.

IPVanish is the solution to all online problems and threats. Connect to IPVanish and get high security, privacy and anonymity all at once and under one roof.

Why Choose This VPN Service – IPVanish Pros and Cons

IPVanish is an excellent Virtual Private Network. It is especially great for those who are beginners. It allows them to browse the web anonymously to access the blocked content they desire to watch with ease.

It is a US based company which has been in the industry for over 5 years. It is an independent subsidiary of Highwinds Network Group situated in Orlando, Florida. The VPN is equipped with great features, but for a good review, we are going to weigh in the pros and the cons.

IPVanish Pros

Using IPVanish comes with a lot of benefits for the users owing to its variety of features for enhanced privacy and security. When such features are paired with a strong high-speed connection, unlimited bandwidth and P2P optimized servers, it makes an excellent all-purpose VPN with pros as below:

IPVanish Cons

Though the pros overweigh the cons, there are a few that may be a little troublesome for people who like streaming or for those who have a query that they want an immediate response to. Listed are a few cons of IPVanish that we have come across while reviewing.

Slower Compared to other VPN

No live chat

Customer Support is not always available (takes 1 – 2 days to reply)

Compatibility Issues (no custom client for Ubuntu)

Pros and Cons Analyzed

While we weigh in the pros and cons of IPVanish in this review, it is evident that the VPN is great for those who want to stream videos, movies or live TV online. It will also be the choice of many torrenteers who want to torrent without the fear of being caught. IPVanish has P2P servers which make torrenting and streaming all the more smoother and easier. Other than that it makes the network secure enough to make banking transactions without worrying of sensitive information being leaked, even on a public Wi-Fi.

However, with pros come the cons. The con of IPVanish that first crossed us before anything else is that it is based in the United States. Now, even though the company itself has a no logging policy, being in the United States Judiciary means that they have to comply by all the laws of the land including the US data retention laws. According to this, the company is bound to keep records for 6-12 months due to law, if not willingly. This counts as a major con as there is a trace you are leaving behind with the VPN Company, if not your ISP, which has chances to incriminate you at some point. Another factor that torrenteers and streamers will look at is that it slows down speed a little more as compared to other VPN services. The customer service is also not as prompt as we would like it to be though it is quite helpful once they respond.

IPVanish Pricing and Subscription Process

The subscription process is not difficult and much similar to every other leading VPN service available. Once you land on their pricing page, you have 3 options to choose from. Their popular deal which is the best value for money is their 1-year deal which saves 46%.

IPVanish pricing plans are as follows:

1 Year Plan – $6.49 per month

The one year plan is billed at $77.99 annually saving up to 46% money as compared to the regular pricing.

1 Month Plan – $10 per month

Even though the plan states that it saves 17%, it really isn’t a big deal given that most VPNs already offer their service priced at $10. The subscription is renewed every month and billed the same amount of $10 monthly.

3 Month Plan – $8.99 per month

This quarterly plan is lighter on the pocket by 25%. It will be billed at $26.99 at a time and will renew every 3 months.

After you choose your subscription plan, click start now and proceed. It will ask you to create your account by asking you to provide email and password. This information is needed to send account credentials at and by the company to maintain customer record, nothing else.

Next, you select your payment method from the option provided between Credit Card and PayPal. Other than MasterCard, Visa, and American Express, there are more options available such as Delta, Visa Electron, etc. which makes payment process a little more flexible and easier.

Put in your details and you will be emailed your credentials to log in. And that is about it. Nothing complex or time-consuming.

The pricing seems higher than average to a few, though the service will definitely give you your money’s worth. They have a 7-day money back guarantee, which gives more than enough time to test the features and service itself.

Does IPVanish Work Smoothly?

Once you have set up IPVanish and connected to it, you have established a secure connection between your original local ISP and the IPVanish server. All of your data and browsing activity that is transmitted is first encrypted. For the people who are not tech savvy, they should know that encryption is just a fancy method of saying that read user data and information.

The encryption methods are strong and advance thus any monitoring software or regular data collection tools will also not be able to read your traffic owing to the advanced encryption methods. Along with that, your identity is completely masked so that your location is hidden from view.

IPVanish is a smooth drive – incredibly straightforward and easy to use. This is, in fact, one of the most highlighted benefits of the VPN service. It is a one-time installation and after it is installed, there are no extra settings to adjust. Just launch IPVanish and connect to a remote VPN server to browse away from the internet freely and securely.

It is established that IPVanish is strongly encrypted with a 256-bit encryption. But to top that, it can also be configured with different protocols for security and further such purposes. The protocols are:

OpenVPN (TCP)

OpenVPN (UDP)

L2TP

PPTP

All these protocols work well when paired with the level of encryption that IPVanish has to offer. PPTP is the most basic encryption out of all the above. UDP and TCP also fulfill different purposes seamlessly though, there are a few other services who offer more protocols with their service than just the ones listed above.

What Kind of Security does IPVanish Offer?

IPVanish offers protocols that are secure and support 256-bit AES encryption. This is incredibly secure and also ensures that your Internet Service Provider is not able to track and monitor what you are doing when you are connected to IPVanish. What’s better is that even the temporary connection logs are deleted every two weeks. This bodes well especially in the case of a court order where the third party cannot retrieve detailed connection logs, even if they tried. In addition to that, all the IPs that are present are shared amongst a large pool of users which resultantly makes it difficult to pinpoint one user and his activity even if connection logs were present.

The point mentioned later is the important most as it is the prime reason why you use a VPN – to browse anonymously. It will kill the purpose if your logs can easily be retrieved exposing what you were doing exactly.

What are IPVanish’s Limitations?

There are quite a few VPN services that have limitations such as bandwidth caps, number of connections and more. Even though IPVanish is popular amongst VPN users, it stands to reason that there are some limitations with IPVanish as well. However, during our testing, we have encountered a few but no such major issues.

IPVanish has no bandwidth limitations of any kind. You can stream, browse and download as much and as often you’d like.

It is actually opposite of limitations. IPVanish VPN software can be downloaded on as many devices and as many computers as you want. It lets you connect to 10 devices simultaneously though it only allows you to have one OpenVPN at a time along with one additional connection for another protocol. For instance, if you connect your computer to OpenVPN then you can connect your smartphone or other devices with L2TP or PPTP protocols.

In general, there are no differences between the download and upload speed when connected to a VPN. However, the variation does depend on several factors such as your internet plan, your network adapter and the server location you choose to be connected to. Remember that a VPN server that is the closest to your current location, will give you the highest speed and optimal performance.

You can also configure the VPN with a router which can then increase the compatibility of the software. IPVanish can then secure Xbox 360, Nintendo, Apple TV, Kodi, Roku and more. You can protect your devices conveniently at once as IPVanish allows 10 simultaneous connections but once configured with a router, you can protect more. All you need is a compatible router and you are sorted as each device that connects to the VPN enabled router, is protected by default.

What Good is IPVanish

IPVanish is well-known for it’s incredible, easy and straightforward setup. All that a user is required to do is install the VPN app, launch it and select a remote server location that you are required to show your presence in and hit connect. The app will connect the user automatically to the fastest server closest to them and will then handle all the components which are necessary to keep an active and sturdy VPN connection.

What good IPVanish is that it even has an auto-reconnect feature which is most important when it comes to a VPN for anonymity as, if for any reason, connection breaks or internet network is weak, you are automatically reconnected when severed.

Another thing that is in favorable for the IPVanish users is that they own their own servers. This means that they have complete control over of all the networks themselves. In other sense, the user does not have to connect through publically owned servers. Owning their own servers means increased quality for active VPN connections.

What Is the Best Use of IPVanish

The IPVanish apps work great with all types of network, devices and apps on the said devices. When it comes to specific use cases, IPVanish works smoothly with HD video streaming, torrenting and P2P of other sorts. It also allows for secure browsing on public Wi-Fi networks and more. In this IPVanish review, it is safe to conclude that it is one of the most reliable VPN services around.

IPVanish Features

IPVanish has all the features that you would expect a top leading VPN service to possess. They are all available in the apps. The good part is that the features are integrated in all the apps which are included in all subscription plans. They have a variety of appealing feature, though the most prominent ones are as below:

Kill Switch

1000+ servers in 60 countries. They include locations that also differ from what the usual VPN service providers offer

Netflix enabled

P2P supported

VOIP (Voice Over IP) support

AES 256-bit Encryption

Different VPN protocols

Smart DNS

Unlimited bandwidth

Unlimited server switches

IPVanish has an impressive listing of features. They are included in all the pricing tiers, which means that the features are not only reserved for those who pay extra for different subscription plans. Each IPVanish user gets unlimited bandwidth without discrimination of the price they have paid for the service. The VPN has a 256-bit encryption which is enhanced by other security protocols such as OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP/IPsec and more; for maximum privacy and security.

IPVanish also offers NAT Firewall which gives an extra layer of protection via shared public addresses. This not just adds security but also blocks irrelevant incoming traffic, protecting you from malware.

Another great benefit of IPVanish is its VOIP offering which saves you big bucks on long distance calls. Unlimited P2P traffic, speedy and anonymous torrenting is also supported which is ideal for torrent lovers who are into downloading media in all forms of peer-to-peer sharing.

IPVanish also allows 10 simultaneous connections on different devices in case you want to protect your laptop, phone, desktop and other devices all at once. This is excellent for a household with multiple devices. Other than that it can also be set up on a router which extends the protection possibilities enabling unlimited devices connected to the internal network to be protected.

IPVanish also allows unlimited server switching which means that you can pick any server you want, preferably nearest to your location, and switch as many times as you want. IPVanish also has servers that are different than the usual offering in the VPN business line, such as Egypt and South Africa. Then there are usual New Zealand, Australia, USA and much more.

IPVanish Kill Switch Feature

IPVanish has taken online privacy very seriously, which is the key element of its popularity as well. IPVanish makes sure that your data passes securely and anonymously via tunnels with encryption support. It offers the Kill switch along with the protocols and encryption which makes sure that all your network activities are turned off in case your VPN connection drops for any reason.

Kill switch is a security enhancing feature. You have the option to turn off all activities online until the VPN connection is connected again. Kill switch functionality is as easy as a single click – lets you turn off the connection and go online again with a single click.

Switching IPs

Another great feature that we came across during this IPVanish feature is that it lets the user switch IPs at random. The user only has to pre-select a time interval after which it changes IPs itself. This is excellent for those whose main concern is not only bypassing geo-restrictions but also having high-end security and anonymity. Having the option to switch IPs without having an impact on speed and performance of the VPN is definitely a plus point that weighs in favor of IPVanish as this is a great way to hide from hackers and surveillance agencies.

Security and Privacy – How Sturdy Is the Zero Logging Policy?

With a zero log policy, IPVanish protects your device to a great extent. Especially if you are paying with Bitcoin, the only information you are required to give is your email address and a password – rest even your payment method cannot be traced. Though even if you are more comfortable with the classic sign up, your data is still secure with IPVanish.

However, it is believed, and true to a great extent, that US-based companies are required to keep logs because of Data Retention Laws. Even though IPVanish also claims to maintain zero logs, by law they are still required to keep records for about 6 months before they can actually delete it. It may be easier to avoid this earlier, but since the internet laws have become stricter, it is almost impossible to escape this.

Though, IPVanish takes privacy very seriously otherwise. They provide security protocols with encryption that is robust. Their privacy policy, DMCA, and terms of service are transparent and explicit.

IPVanish uses shared IPs which increases the privacy additionally. Shared IPs make it almost impossible to track and track down the user’s real identity and IP address.

Interface

With a clear vision in mind, IPVanish was built with simplicity. With simplicity as a focal point for the software, it goes to show that the main aim is seamless functionality. And to date, that’s what IPVanish is all about. The company has client software for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android as well. You can easily download the app through IPVanish’s website. Not only that, it can be configured with a router which will then secure any device connected to the VPN enabled router.

After you sign up and create an account, you will get a welcome email on the email address that you have provided. The email will have a username and password for you to put in the app. It will also have the instructions that you can follow to simply start your client. On the left side of the app/client, you will find a menu with a dashboard, server selection, IP settings, account, and support.

Multi-Platform

Benefittingly, IPVanish supports all major devices and operating systems. When compared the android application of this VPN service with that of their desktop one, it faired quite well and the performance was almost as smooth and identical to the other.

The app is developed by Mudhook Marketing Inc but does not be reluctantly seeing that as it is the parent company of IPVanish.

When installing the Android app, you get access to OpenVPN connection by default. Whereas iOS app allows the user to use PPTP and L2TP both interchangeably.

Performance and Reliability

With a master tier of a network of VPNs in 60 countries, IPVanish makes it to the list of top VPN services in the industry. All the countries whose IP is most demanded by the users, such as the UK and US, have multiple servers to maintain the best speed offered in the business as of now. IPVanish’s services are spread out in European countries, Asian countries and even South America and South Africa.

When we speak about performance, we ran speed and DNS leak tests for our IPVanish Review and were quite pleased to find no DNS leaks and great upload and download speeds. After covering the basics, we also tested L2TP and OpenVPN connections, which also returned good results.

IPVanish Servers

When choosing a VPN service provider, one must definitely evaluate the number of servers and their performance. The number of servers a VPN has to offer and the locations it is present in are the two key elements that should derive the decision of a person seeking to purchase a VPN.

IPVanish, when evaluated in this regard, revealed findings that all VPN seekers should read up before making a purchase.

You may have different reasons for purchasing a VPN, but still, any reason that you may have, number of servers and the country they are located in are mostly always correlated with the purpose of getting a VPN in the first place. When it comes to IPVanish, it has more than 1000 servers that are mapped out over 60 countries.

This gives you the choice to connect to almost any server you want. The chances of connecting to a server near you are also quite high – which in turn means high speeds. The diversity of servers opens you to choices that liberate you to access different content from worldwide which is restricted in your location and confined to one particular country or region. Additionally, get access to over 25000 shared IPs which eliminate the chance of ever leading back to you!

In the UK itself IPVanish has 80+ servers. Just connect to one of the servers close to you and unblock geo-blocked TV shows, live TV, documentaries and more. It also has 35+ servers in Canada which secure your online privacy and bypassing online censorship and ISP surveillance smoothly allowing you to watch Canadian video content and more instantly.

The IPVanish servers being spread out give the user a multitude of benefits. The VPN service will allow you to overcome geo-restrictions and watch BBC iPlayer and other famous streaming services with ease along with getting device compatibility, money back guarantees, multi-login and more. Use IPVanish and connect to the fastest VPN servers on your desired operating systems and devices right away!

IPVanish Apps

The VPN service allows 10 simultaneous connections however if you set up IPVanish on the router instead, then you can secure as many devices as you want which connect to the VPN enabled router.

IPVanish Android App

While IPVanish has apps for many different operating systems, we went ahead to test out the most popular one for this IPVanish Review.

The setup for android devices is very easy and is not time-consuming at all. It is simple and it is only a matter of seconds until the setup is done on your Android devices. Once the setup is complete and IPVanish is connected, it provides great security to the device and the data on it. The user can freely surf and stream the internet over public Wi-Fi as well without the fear of being intruded by hackers, snoopers or being vulnerable to malware. IPVanish keeps your device safe from getting attacked on spied on by copyright trolls or other online surveillance agencies.

The IPVanish app for Android works impeccably on all android versions. It allows you to use VOIP services on Smartphones and tablets as well. IPVanish can be resorted to making international calls from VOIP services, comparatively.

The app also allows unlimited server switching which allows you to access desired content on your Android from all over the world. It lets you enjoy TV shows on Netflix, VUDU, Hulu and more. Get access to all the blocked sites in your region. Everything within your reach on your Android device via an IPVanish connection.

IPVanish iPhone and iPad App

IPVanish app for iOS (iPhone and iPad) are on the App Store where they can easily be downloaded on your phone or tablet from. Setting up the VPN on the Apple device is only a game of 5 minutes. It can be done with a few simple steps as laid below:

Note: The steps may vary depending on the version you have running on your device

Go to Settings

You will be redirected to your General profile, where you will see the Network option

Tap on ‘Network’ and create a new VPN profile

Now you will see ‘Add VPN Configuration’, tap on it to continue

Once you have tapped on it, you will be asked to enter the details

Fill in the details assigned to you by IPVanish and select the desired protocol to connect

The app is not only great for security and privacy but also gives you access to streaming services like Netflix US, Hulu and more from anywhere in the world on your iPhone or iPad.

IPVanish Mac VPN App

With an emphasis on user feasibility and convenience, IPVanish has an excellent app for its Mac users to rejoice using. The app for Mac lets the user perform normal functions along with letting them select servers as their favorites so they would show more clearly. The app can also be personalized to facilitate Mac users with selecting IPVanish’s own DNS service or a third-party DNS of user’s own choice.

Customer Support

For the purpose of our IPVanish Review, we have concluded that the customer support is quite knowledgeable, friendly and helpful! They have relevant answers to your questions though not immediately. Unfortunately, IPVanish does not provide 24/7 live chat support. They have an email ticket support along with an extensive FAQ and phenomenal setup guides.

So, Is It Worth the Price?

We have become slaves to technology and it is safe to say that majority of our everyday communication or task execution is done through the tech devices we own. We often also connect to public Wi-Fi on the go to get work. In this digital age, it is important to hence secure our devices from cyber goons who are waiting to jump at every chance they get to hack into our device and access our confidential data. This is why a VPN is more a necessity these days and IPVanish is one of the best VPN service providers around which serves as a remedy to be safe from all the dangers and hassles of the online world. With its compatibility with almost all versions and devices, IPVanish becomes a priority choice to secure your devices.

Concluding this IPVanish Review, we can say that IPVanish is the epitome of high speed, unlimited bandwidth, and secure connections. They have servers set up across the globe in abundance which can be seen in the map coverage on their website. This IPVanish review has full insight into the VPN provider’s offerings including pricing, security, and other features. The billing options include 3 plans and occasional best value deals too, all which are definitely worth the price.

1 Comment

I’ve used IPVanish for over a year, but they’ve been caught in a scandal regarding no-logs policies, had to change my provider and currently I’m using Surfshark. Took me a while to find new service, but spotted their Black Friday discount, gives 83% with “BLACKSHARK” coupon and reviews were good. I think IPVanish is still a solid provider and your review is accurate but happy to see new players are joining the market.